The Insider: Microsoft patent story clicked off a few people

Updated
10:00 pm PDT, Sunday, June 6, 2004

UPON CLOSER REVIEW: Microsoft Corp. caused a stir in the technology world last week with news that it was awarded a patent for, among other things, starting a program "if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click."

Could it be? Could the Redmond company now make other companies pay for the ubiquitous practice of tapping a computer mouse twice to open a program on a computer screen?

But a closer read of the patent text indicated it wasn't as broad -- or as sinister -- as the initial headlines suggested. The patent relates to different ways of tapping or holding down a hardware button to launch programs and other functions on "a limited resource computing device."

That refers to a button on a hand-held device such as a Pocket PC, not to the double-clicking of a mouse on a PC, a Microsoft spokesman said.

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But some in the industry still wondered whether the patent could affect Microsoft competitors palmOne or PalmSource, the hardware and software outfits created when Palm Inc. separated into two companies. A palmOne spokesman, Jim Christensen, would only say, "We have not reviewed the Microsoft patent, and at this time have no opinion on its validity or applicability."

Microsoft, for its part, seemed a bit mystified at the reaction in the technology media. The company spokesman, Marc Miller, noted that the company receives "dozens of patents every week." He added, "We don't speculate on what products may or may not infringe patents."

JUST ANOTHER WAY TO SAY GOODBYE: Donald Trump isn't afraid to tell employees "you're fired," but other bosses have dodged those words over the years with plenty of euphemisms -- terminated, let go, laid off, released, and, our favorite, spending more time with the family.

Now, the outsourcing trend has added a new phrase to the lexicon -- participating in a "Workforce Management Program," the Los Angeles Times reports.

Sadly, work-force management is another way of showing you the door, the newspaper said in telling the story of one Agilent Technologies Inc. employee whose job was lost amid an outsourcing drive.

CLOSING THE GAP OR LOWERING THE BAR? Local grocery chains and workers remain locked in contract talks, but Albertsons Inc. chief Lawrence Johnston offered a vague and potentially telling vision of future labor agreements last week:

"Over the next three years as we restructure those (contracts), you'll see a major difference in the labor and benefits gap that exists between ourselves and non- traditional players that have entered the industry in the last, you know, 10 to 20 years," Johnson told analysts on a conference call.

National grocery chain executives complain that non-traditional and budget retailers, Wal-Mart Stores and discounters, are invading their turf by selling groceries with a key advantage, cheaper labor. The chains are striving to lower their own costs in the latest round of collective bargaining.

SEE YOUR FUTURE -- AND CHANGE IT: The very essence of health care today -- display symptoms, get diagnosed, get treated -- will change from reactive to predictive within 15 years, said esteemed researcher Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., on Friday.

By then, he said, performing a complete scan of each person's genome, or genetic makeup, will take only one-five-thousandth as long as it does today, thanks to advances in computing. So each of us will have had a complete genetic analysis, allowing us to anticipate early in life to which diseases and disorders we're prone.

Using a hand-held blood- testing device available even sooner, we'll regularly make 10,000 measurements on a sample, then feed the results into our cell phones.

The results "will go to the server, and the server will send you back an e-mail message that says 'You're fine, do it again in six months' or 'Go see your oncologist,' " said Hood at the annual Downtown Seattle Association luncheon, where the gene-mapping pioneer was guest speaker. By that time, drugs will be able to fend off more diseases rather than just treating them, he said.

"It will require a profound change in how we educate medical students -- and the public," said Hood, who played a role in founding Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin and Rosetta, and now heads the Institute for Systems Biology.

TOUTING THEIR BEST: The downtown association -- which includes some of the biggest retail businesses of the region, including Bon-Macy's, Nordstrom and the Westin Hotel -- also honored one of its own at the Friday gathering. Well, kinda. The Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority -- a distinctly non-corporate collection of retailers -- won the association's first-ever Downtown Seattle Champion Award. Fair enough, probably. The association touted the 9 million visitors a year drawn to the market.